Mary, such an old-fashioned name. I don't particularly like the name, but it suited her, because nobody particularly liked Mary. It wasn't her looks, she was actually rather pretty, when she smiled. Unfortunately she rarely smiled, smiling wasn't part of her repertoire.
She'd been a barmaid at the pub for quite a while longer than most of us. Most of us were students, earning a bit of cash to get us through Uni. She wasn't that much older, only three or four years, perhaps it was because she didn't particularly enjoy her job, maybe she was jealous that we'd soon be gone once we'd graduated and she'd still be there, I don't know.
She took obvious satisfaction in making us feel inferior. Sarcastic remarks, put downs, training us in a patronising manner. We were all used to her attitude, but she was just a barmaid, not the landlady.
She always dressed in dark, old fashioned dresses, never wore tights, never wore boots, just plain flat black shoes. She was obviously in good shape, slim, her boobs a little smaller than a handful. If she wore nicer clothes, she'd be quite a catch, nicer clothes and a bit of sun that is.
She worked most shifts, being full time. So perhaps she never got the chance for sun. She was as white as snow, with her long black hair, usually in a loose ponytail with a few loose strands that she had to frequently brush behind her ear. Her face was round with dark brown eyes, those fortunate enough to see her smile reported dimples in her cheeks. If it wasn't for her abrasive personality, she'd probably have a boyfriend. In fact, I never saw her with anyone, I'd not even known her to show interest in anybody.
When the landlady went on holiday, Mary was put in charge, she was trustworthy, and she was the most experienced in the day-to-day running of the place. Sometimes others got the chance to count up the tills or re-order stock, but Mary did it most of the time.
So, with the owner away, I was given some extra shifts, including some lunchtimes. The pub was dead most lunchtimes, food wasn't exactly our thing, we were just a city centre nightclub-feeder, we didn't need to do anything to attract business in the evenings, we just opened the doors. Lunchtimes however, had very little custom, so it was just me and Mary on duty.
Unusually, she didn't wear her trademark dark attire, she had on some cream faux jodhpurs and a white short sleeved blouse with a lacy collar. She looked different, she actually looked appealing. I didn't dare compliment, I could do with as little wrath as possible.
As it was quiet, she continuously tasked me to clean the fridge doors, polish the brass, get stock ready for the night. Not once a please, never a thank you. I didn't really mind about the impoliteness, it was her choice of words that always grated on me. Instead of "Can you slice some more lemon?", it was "lemons need slicing", or "The doors need locking", as if I should have done it already, as if the task was overdue. I shouldn't have let it wind me up, but I did. She was relentless in her abrasive instruction, and all she did for the shift was sit on the tall bar stool by the bar hatch, reading her book, eating her apple.
It was almost closing time, and the place was dead. I locked up as instructed and went to the end of the bar to pick up a knife, cling film and some lemons to slice and wrap them ready for the evening. She had one leg over the knee of the other, and was dangling her black slip-on shoe by the toes, spinning her browning apple core by its stem between her glossy black fingernails. Sitting like that and wearing those jodhpurs gave a good shape to her thigh, I couldn't help glancing occasionally, some glances were too long to be considered glances.
"The skips need emptying." she instructed, without even lifting her head from her book.
"Er, there's only a few bottles in them, we've not really sold any, I wouldn't bother"
"The skips get emptied after every shift, so they're nice and empty, ready for the next shift".
It's not so much what she said but the way she said it. I don't know what came over me, I guess I just couldn't take any more and I snapped. She began to stifle a yawn - I took that as my cue. I stuffed one of the lemons I was holding in to her open mouth and swiftly stretched some cling film around her head to keep it there.
She quickly panicked and tried to pick it off but I grabbed her wrists and wrapped them together behind her back. The bar stool tipped over and she rolled onto the floor, wriggling and shrieking, well, trying to, her loose shoes came off. She was already gagging for air, her convulsing diaphragm was peeping from under her blouse which had started to ride up her pale torso. I held her head still between my legs and cut a hole through the lemon. She was recovering her breath so hard she couldn't manage a scream, well, that and because she was gargling lemon juice.
I wheeled a (practically fucking EMPTY!) big blue plastic bottle skip from behind the bar to her side, she was still breathing hard. I threw her into it, face up, lying on her tied arms and pulled her knees over the edge.
"My mistake, it does need emptying!"
I wheeled her down the steps into the cellar. The stairs were quite wide, they lead to another bar we had in the basement, closed during lunchtimes unless there was a private party, the cellar doors were just off the corridor that led to the downstairs bar.
There were 12 steps, normally two people would carry a full skip down. I had to let it just drop one step at a time, I mean the other member of staff that would usually help was a bit, well, tied up. She felt every step, I could tell by the clap of the skip's wheels against the edging strip of each step, mixed with a small whimper. In the cellar, the cooling fans were noisy enough to drown out her muffled cries. I heard the sound of fresh ice cubes drop from the industrial ice maker that was plumbed in the far corner.
"Fucking hell Mary", I walked over to the ice maker. "I'm sorry, but if you'd just... lighten up a little, but no, you're a fucking ice maiden ain't ya?"
I scooped up a bucket full and tipped it over her. Her body went into a rigid spasm as the rough jagged cubes covered her, lifting her body out of the the skip by the back of her neck, her bare feet kicking the air. Her screams were going hoarse already, but her eyes grew extremely wide and were tracking me as I walked around the skip, considering what to do next.
"You should be used to this temperature. I need to calm down before I regret doing something. I'm going to cash up and then I'll come get you out."
She started to scream some more as I turned to go, it sounded desperate, but once the cellar doors were closed you couldn't really hear. I pocketed the kitchen scissors to help free her afterwards, finished tidying up, then took the till drawer into the office to count up.
It shouldn't have taken me very long to count, we only had one till in operation for the shift, but it wasn't balancing, it was way out, by more than we could have possibly taken with it being so quiet, it was as if the till was only half full from the start. Somebody must have stolen some, it was too significant to be a honest mistake, and I knew that this particular somebody wasn't me.
So, much later than I had intended, after double checking numerous times, I returned to check on Mary. I pushed the doors open, her legs were motionless and I couldn't hear her, I wondered if I'd overdone it. I steadily advanced on the skip, afraid she could be seriously hurt. It seemed like forever, but when I got close enough to see inside, she was fine, considering. Her guilty eyes were fixed on mine. Now I knew she had been taking money from the till, and I could tell she knew I knew, it was written all over her cling-filmed face.
